Belmont Stakes 2015 Horses: Entry List, Vegas Odds and Dark-Horse Favorites

After what seems like an eternity, we're finally closing in on this year's running of the Belmont Stakes.

Like last year, we have another Triple Crown threat on our hands with the Bob Baffert-trained American Pharoah. For his rider, Victor Espinoza, it'll be two attempts in two years, as he also rode California Chrome in last year's Triple Crown races.

Whether Pharoah can capture the final jewel of the Triple Crown remains to be seen, but one thing's for certain: He'll have stiff competition come race day.

The three-year-old superstar will see a number of familiar foes, including the second- and third-betting choices in this year's race, Frosted and Materiality. Behind those two colts, though, loom a number of dark-horse threats to swoop in and dash the hopes and dreams of racing fans looking for the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed (1978).

Those are the runners we're most concerned with for this piece, and we'll take a look at two who have shown both in the past and in their recent workouts that they should be considered major threats to Pharoah's reign.

Before we get into that, though, be sure to check below for the race's entries, as well as their recent odds, via OddsShark.com.

Entries and Odds

Horse	Trainer	Odds
American Pharoah	Bob Baffert	5-6
Frosted	Kiaran McLaughlin	11-2
Materiality	Todd Pletcher	13-2
Carpe Diem	Todd Pletcher	12-1
Mubtaahij	Michael De Kock	16-1
Madefromlucky	Todd Pletcher	16-1
Tale of Verve	Dale Romans	22-1
Keen Ice	Dallas Stewart	28-1
Frammento	Nick Zito	40-1
The Truth or Else	Ken McPeek	50-1

Mubtaahij (16-1)

Mubtaahij gained a lot of recognition with his win in the Grade 2 UAE Derby back in late-March. The Dubawi colt trounced his nine competitors in a time of 1:58.35 for the 1 3/16 mile race.

The most impressive part about that win was the ease with which he first caught, and passed the leading group of Dear Domus, Golden Barows and Tap That. Mubtaahij and his rider Cristophe Soumillon then geared down prior to passing the finish line with an eight-length lead and the whip in hand.

Mubtaahij followed with a boring eighth-place showing in the Derby last month. The young colt got bottled up between runners early and had to run along the rail. With no room to operate, Mubtaahij found himself with very little left in the tank when he was finally asked.

It's hard to fault the Michael De Kock-trained colt for his performance, as international shippers have a history of mediocre-to-poor performances in the Derby.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al Maktoum and De Kock opted to skip the Preakness in favor of training for Belmont, and at first glance, it seems to have paid off. According to Equibase, the Ireland-born colt logged a bullet in his May 17 breeze over Belmont's inner-turf track and followed that up with solid workouts on the 20th, 24th, 27th and 30th.

Mubtaahij has been working up a storm lately, and De Kock acknowledged that when speaking on the subject following the colt's latest workout (via NYRA.com):

"

We'll freshen him up now this week. We've been pretty hard on him; that's our normal routine. Two weeks out we work him hard and the last week freshen him up, but he's going good and we're very happy with him.

"

It's going to be a light week for Mubtaahij as the race grows closer, but he looks the part of a Belmont contender.

International horses tend to perform well over long distances, and De Kock is one of the world's premier trainers. That and his impressive workout regiment suggest that he could, at the very least, hit the board on June 6.

Keen Ice (28-1)

Trainer Dale Romans is hoping that practice makes perfect. The Louisville native has saddled six Belmont Stakes runners but has never finished better than third—a feat he's accomplished three times.

That said, Keen Ice has a shot to make some noise for Romans in this year's Belmont.

Last time out for Keen Ice was in the Derby, and although he had to settle for a seventh-place finish in The Run for the Roses, he showed good burst late and also the ability to maneuver through traffic, coming from as far as 14 3/4 lengths back to finish 8 3/4 back of Pharoah.

Since then, Romans has had the young colt on a steady workout plan, including two recent showings over six furlongs on the Churchill dirt track, per Equibase.com. It's tough to judge how the Curlin colt is performing in relation to his peers in those six-furlong races since he's essentially the only one working over that long a distance.

However, we do have Romans' take on that solo workout, via NYRA.com:

"

He worked great. He went by himself, which he doesn't usually do but we're going for the endurance at this point. I thought it was a great work.

"

It would be nice to see the young colt working at Belmont and acclimating himself to both the dirt, and the track dimensions, but his workout regiment is enticing enough to make him a part of an exotic play.

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